In an age when personal service is so hard to find, it’s no wonder the producers of Eden 2015 included “Special Thanks to Sunnyvale Travel” in the movie’s final credits. The team of this Sunnyvale-based travel agency arranged for an international cast and crew to arrive from various parts of the globe, on time, and on budget, to film the movie.
“We continue to change with the times,” says Aman Valani, manager and third generation of this family-owned business. For more than 30 years, the agency has been serving people from their downtown Sunnyvale location and now has a team of professional agents who speak English, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi & Urdu.
The agents clearly enjoy what they do, and the office is a busy hub of planning, itineraries and working with clients to provide the best personalized service they can. “Sometimes,” one of the agents explains, “people are surprised at what having a good travel agent can do. Last year when there was severe flooding in India’s Chennai, a group of our customers had that region as part of their itinerary. We were able to work with the airlines to get people re-routed, re-booked if they preferred, or refunds if necessary. It’s hard for individuals to do that alone if they arranged every leg of a trip on an online ticketing site.”
It’s not just travel to Europe or India that occupies this business. They’ve managed the travel for a Bollywood singer who toured several U.S. cities; have arranged movie crews to travel to Capetown which is a popular shooting destination for Bollywood producers; and guided customers through the maze of vaccinations and visas necessary to travel the globe.
“The travel agency business is about adapting,” says Aman. “When my uncle started, it was about airlines and Amtrak. Now it is so much more, as people want to travel a lot, and there are so many choices and sometimes so much red tape. But for us, it’s still about service. We still listen to our clients and do our best to serve them, to be certain they get the best service.” The reward, the team agrees, is when a customer sends a note or card and says, “Thank you. It was a great trip.”
Sunnyvale Travel is located at 251 Mathilda, online at www.sunnyvaletravel.net and is ready to serve your personal travel needs at 408-245-5090.